The Birth Story of Caitlyn Leah Brooks

On Wednesday March 19th, I had a scheduled C-section planned for that morning. I was told the night before to stop eating after 12:00 am and come to the hospital at 5:30 am.  It was a rough morning.  With little sleep, we were still excited to finally meet our daughter.  Here is the time line of events that followed.

4:00 am-- Showered with some nasty soap and finished packing our hospital bags
4:30 am-- Got Colby's stuff ready for Marsha and preschool
5:00 am -- Bill ate some breakfast and packed the car
5:30 am -- Arrived at hospital and waited in ER room for 15 minutes
5:45 am -- Registered and walked to maternity room
6:00 am -- Nurses showed us to room and we get checked in and prepped for surgery.  The room is 1/8 the size of our last birthing room.
7:00 am -- Everyone is ready to go, but Dr. Bowman has yet to arrive.  We can't start earlier than 7:45 anyway due to hospital procedures.
7: 30 am -- Bill gets his scrubs on and prepares for videos/photos.  Dr. Bowman has arrived.
7:45 am -- I get wheeled in for spinal.  Once spinal was done, I got blankets put over my arms.  The curtain goes up and procedure begins.
8:00 am -- I am numb all the way from my chest to my toes.  I can smell my skin burning as my C-section incision is opening up again.  I feel the doctor pulling her out. I can feel a gentle pressure as she is lifted out of my body.  Bill cuts the umbilical cord.
8:12 am -- She is out and crying.  Dr. Bowman lifts her up and shows us her face.  She is perfect.  Bill has everything on video.
8:15 am -- She gets cleaned off and weighed by the nurses. I am getting stitched back up in the surgery room while Bill looks after the baby.  They come back 5 minutes later to say she is 9 lbs 5.9 ounces. We are in shock.
8:30 am -- I get to see her and have skin to skin.  I immediately start breastfeeding and she latches on like a champ.  This never happened with Colby.
9:00 am -- After breastfeeding, they check on her blood sugar since Colby's was low right after birth.  Her blood sugar was not as low as Colby's, but she still needed an IV.
9:30 am -- They put her on an IV and she comes back to the room for some love.
10:00 am -- Family is ready to see her and come meet our new girl.  We announce her name: Caitlyn Leah Brooks.  Her middle name is after my grandma's middle name.  Everyone is thrilled.

The rest of the day was a blur.  Caitlyn was finally here.  As new parents again, Bill and I felt a lot more confident on what we are doing.  This will probably hurt us later and knock us back to reality.  Maybe this new sense of empowerment let us relax more and enjoy the whole birthing process.  I was not as nervous as before with the C-section procedure and breastfeeding again.  I just was thrilled with everything because it was planned.. no guessing on what would happen because we had experienced it all before.  We took tons of photos and video.  Here are some pics from that morning.